A Lecture By
Rudolf Steiner
Dornach, February 11, 1923
GA 221

Thanks to Anna Quinn and Steven Decker: their collaborative effort
in Anthroposophical Medicine has made this lecture available.

The Invisible Man Within UsPathology Underlying Therapy

When we consider the human
being, two beings can be clearly distinguished. You will recall that
in various recent studies I have explained how the physical
organization of the human being is spiritually prepared during the
preearthly life. In a certain sense it is then sent down as spiritual
organization before the human being enters with his ego into earthly
existence. This spiritual organization continues to be active
essentially during the entire physical life on earth, but it does not
express itself during physical earthly life as something outwardly
visible. The outwardly visible aspect of this spiritual organization
is essentially cast off at birth, consisting of the embryonic
membranes that envelop the human embryo during its development
— the chorion, the allantois, the amnion, the yolk sac —
everything, in other words, that is cast away as physical
organization when the human being attains a free physical existence
on leaving the womb.

Yet this pre-earthly
organization continues to be active in the human being throughout his
entire life. It is somewhat different in character, however, from the
body soul-spirit efficacy of the human being during his physical
earthly life. And this is what I would like to speak about today.

In a certain sense, then,
we have an invisible man within us. It is contained in our
growth-forces as well as in those hidden forces through which
nourishment occurs. It is contained in everything in which the human
being is not consciously active. Its work extends into this
unconscious activity, right into the growth activity, into the daily
restoration of forces through nutrition. And this work is the
aftereffect of the pre-earthly existence, which in earthly existence
becomes a body of forces that is active in us but does not come to
conscious manifestation. Today I would like to describe to you the
character of this invisible man, which we all carry within us,
contained in our forces: growth and nutrition, as well as in our
reproductive forces.

Proceeding schematically,
we can say that this invisible man also contains the ego, the astral
organization, the etheric organization (and therefore the body of
formative forces), and the physical organization. Of course in the
human being after birth the physical organization of the invisible
man is inserted into the other human physical organization, but in
the course of today's considerations you will begin to understand how
the invisible man can lay hold of the physical organization.

Drawn schematically it
would look like this (see drawing, [right]). In this invisible man we
have first the ego organization (yellow); then we have the astral
organization (red), then the etheric organization (blue), and finally
we have the physical organization (white). This physical organization
of the invisible man penetrates only into the nutrition and growth
processes, into everything where the lower man, as we have often
called it — the metabolic-limb man — manifests itself in
the human organization. All currents, all effects of forces in this
invisible man proceed from the ego organization into the astral, then
into the etheric, and on into the physical organization (see arrow).
They then spread out in the physical organization. In the human
embryo, what we call here the physical organization of the invisible
man is present in the embryonic envelopes, in the embryonic sheaths,
the chorion, the allantois, the amnion, and the yolk sac. In the
human being after birth, however, the physical organization of the
invisible man is contained in the nourishing and restorative
processes in the human being. Thus viewed from outside, this physical
organization is not separated from the other physical organization of
the human being but is united with it.

In a certain sense, then,
in addition to this invisible man we have the visible human being
that we encounter after birth. I will sketch this visible human being
right next to the invisible one (see drawing). This is how the mutual
interpenetration of the physical and superphysical human being would
appear during earthly life. During earthly life there is a continuous
stream from ego to astral body, to etheric body, to physical body
(see arrows). In the human being after birth, this stream flows into
the metabolic-limb organization, in the forces of our outer movement,
and also in the inner forces of movement that carry ingested food
into the entire organization up to the brain.

In addition to this,
however, there is a direct intervention of forces that enter the
entire human being directly from the ego. An activity thus penetrates
us, a stream that flows directly from the ego into the nerve-sense
organization without first passing through the astral body and
etheric body; instead this stream lays hold of man's physical body
directly. Naturally this penetration is strongest in the head, where
most of the sense organs are concentrated, but I should actually draw
this stream in such a way that it spreads out over the skin-senses,
over the entire human being, just as I would have to draw a stream
for the course of food taken in by the mouth. Schematically, however,
my drawing is quite correct.

In the human head, then,
we have one organization that flows up from below, proceeding from
the ego but passing through the astral, etheric, and physical and
then to the ego. We have another stream that enters the physical
directly and flows down. If we examine the human organism, we arrive
at the insight that this unmediated stream, which enters the physical
directly from the ego and then branches out over the whole body,
proceeds along the nerve pathways. Thus when the human nerves spread
out in the organism, the outwardly visible nerve strand is the
visible sign of these outspreading streams that enter the entire
organism directly from the ego, proceeding from the ego into the
physical organization without mediation. The ego organization at
first runs along the pathways of the nerves. This has an essentially
destructive effect on the organism. There the spirit enters directly
into physical matter, and wherever the spirit enters physical matter
directly a destructive process occurs, so that along the nerve
pathways, proceeding from the senses, a delicate death process
spreads out through the human organism.

The other stream, which in
the invisible man goes through the astral, etheric, and physical
bodies, can be traced in the human being by following the blood
pathways up to the senses. Thus when we examine the human being as we
encounter him here on earth, we can say that the ego flows in the
blood. But the ego flows in such a way that it first ensouls its
forces through the astral organization and through the etheric and
physical organizations. After first taking along the astral and
etheric organizations, the ego streams through the physical
organization in the blood from below upward. Thus the entire
invisible man flows in the blood as a constructive process, as a
growth process, as the process that constantly renews the human being
by working through his food. This stream flows in the human being
from below upward (speaking schematically), pours itself into the
senses, and therefore also into the skin, and encounters the other
stream which, from the ego, takes hold of the physical organization
directly.

Actually, however, this
whole matter is even more complicated, because we must also consider
the breathing process. In the breathing process, the ego flows into
the astral body, but then it goes directly into the lungs along with
the air. Thus something from the super-sensible man also underlies the
breathing process, but not in the same way as occurs in the
nerve-sense process, where the ego takes hold of the physical
organization directly. In the breathing process, the ego permeates
itself with the astral forces, taking hold of oxygen and only then,
no longer as pure ego organization but as ego-astral organization,
does it take hold of the organism with the help of the breathing
process. It could also be said that the breathing process is a
weakened process of destruction, a weakened death process. The actual
death process is the nerve-sense process, and a weakened process of
destruction, a weakened death process, is the breathing process.

This is then confronted by
the process in which the ego further strengthens itself by streaming
up to the etheric body and only then being taken up. This process,
taking place mainly in the super-sensible so that it cannot be traced
by the usual physiology, is active in the pulse; there it is still
outwardly perceptible. It is a restorative process, not as strong as
the direct metabolic-restorative process, but rather a weakened
restorative process. As we have seen, the breathing process is to a
certain extent a destructive process. Our life would be much shorter
if we absorbed more oxygen. The more the carbonic acid formation
process of the blood counters the absorption of oxygen in the
breathing process, the longer our life will be.

Thus everything interacts
within the organism, and in order really to understand what is going
on, one needs to understand the super-sensible human being, because
its outwardly visible aspects were cast off with the embryonic
membranes and are active in the human being after birth only through
invisible forces. These forces can be clearly designated, however, if
we proceed from the anthroposophical knowledge of the human
being.

If, for example, we look
into the eye with this anthroposophical knowledge, we see that the
blood process courses through the eye in fine ramifications. This is
taken hold of by the nerve process going in the opposite direction.
The blood process always moves toward the periphery in the human
being, moving centrifugally; the nerve process, which is in fact a
breakdown process, is always directed centripetally, toward man's
inside. All processes that occur in the human being are metamorphoses
of these two processes.

If the interaction of
pulse and breathing is properly coordinated, then the lower man is
properly connected to the upper man. If this is the case and no
external injuries intervene, an individual should be basically
healthy. Only when breakdown predominates will destructive processes
encroach on the activities in the organism. The human being becomes
ill because something foreign accumulates in his organism that has
not been worked through in the right way, something containing
excessive breakdown forces, containing too much of what is related to
the physical nature that surrounds the human being in his earthly
environment.

The spiritual element's
direct penetration of the organism by way of the ego brings about
those processes that produce pathological occurrences, foreign
formations. These foreign formations may not manifest immediately in
physical symptoms, but they may manifest in the fluid and even in the
airy aspect of the human being. They can develop, and if they are not
countered by a healing process that flows from below along the
pathways of the blood, they cannot dissolve. These formations have
the tendency to form tumor-like accumulations in the body and then to
fragment within. If the blood-formation process confronts them in the
right way, they can dissolve and again become part of the general
life of the body. But when a damming up is brought about by an
excessive breakdown process from above downward, it takes hold of one
of the organs. Foreign bodies are then formed, which are first
exudative, tumor-like, but then have the tendency to run their course
like the external processes of earthly nature and fall to pieces. In
this case we need to understand that not enough of the super-sensible
human being is taken up along the path I have drawn here next to the
physical human being.

You see, one cannot speak
about healing directly through human activity, because the moment
that too much activity is developed from the nerve-sense
organization, in a centripetal direction — when too many of the
environmental processes are “stuffed” into man so that
these tumor-like formations develop somewhere, which then decompose
— in that moment the other system, which runs along the blood
vessels, becomes rebellious. It wants to bring about healing, wants
to penetrate the organism with the proper astral and etheric forces
that can come from below. It wants to prevent the ego, or the ego
working with the astral body, from acting alone. The healer has to
take into account this revolutionary principle in the human organism,
and healing consists of supporting, by external means, what is
already present in the organism as an original healing force.

When a tumor-like
formation arises, it is a symptom of the ego activity from the stream
of the invisible man not penetrating in the right way from out of the
etheric body. The ego activity does assert itself, but may at times
be unable to approach the tumor. We might then support the etheric
body in this direction so that it can become active. It can become
active in the right way if it is first permeated by the ego and
astral body and then becomes active. That which comes from above and
has not taken up etheric activity, but at most ego and astral
activity, poisons the organism. When the etheric body approaches
this, when we counter the ego and astral activity with etheric
activity, we support the healing process already present and striving
to be active in the human organization. We only have to know, in such
a case, by what means the etheric organization, permeated in the
right way by astral and ego organization, can penetrate the body. In
other words, in such a case we simply need to help the etheric
organization with a remedy. Therefore we must know which remedy will
make the etheric organization stronger in such a case, so that its
constructive force opposes the excessively destructive force. Thus we
can see that we will never comprehend the pathology that underlies
therapy unless we take into account the invisible man.

It may also be, however,
that when a person is born he does not penetrate strongly enough with
his ego and astral organization — his soul-spiritual
organization — into the physical organization. The
soul-spiritual organization does not push its way into the physical
organization suffciently. Then in this individual there will
continually be a preponderance of the growth forces active from below
upward, which are not given sufficient heaviness through integration
with the physical organization. An individual can be born in such a
way that the invisible man takes insufficient hold of his physical
body, refusing to penetrate into the blood process in the right way.
Then man's spirit cannot approach the blood process. In such
individuals we can already see the consequences of this from
childhood on. They remain pale and thin, or, because of the
predominating growth forces, grow radiply tall. The the
soul-spiritual cannot properly enter the organism. And because the
body refuses to take up the soul-spiritual, our goal must be to
weaken the excessively strong etheric body where the activity has
become too strong. In such pale, lanky individuals we must strive to
contain the hypertrophic, excessively active forces in the etheric
body, restraining them to their proper degree. By this means we can
bring heaviness into the body; the blood, for example, by receiving
the necessary iron content, receives the appropriate heaviness. Then
the etheric body is not as active in an upward direction, and its
effect on the upper man is weakened.

In such individuals
another condition might be noticed: what I would like to call the
night processes predominate over the day processes. You could say
that at night the physical-etheric organization of every normal
person refuses to absorb the soul-spiritual. This night organization
of a person lying in bed — not of the invisible man, who is
outside — is too strong in those people who have a sort of
inborn consumption, as I have just described. In such cases, the day
organization must be supported. This means that it has to be given a
certain heaviness by encouraging the breakdown processes. If one
enhances the breakdown processes and inwardly there appears that
which hardens and finally falls to pieces (in healing, of course,
this must happen only to a small extent) then the overflowing force
of the etheric body is restrained and consumption is held back.

In this way, out of
knowledge of the entire human being, we can comprehend the curious
interaction between health and disease, This interaction is always
present and is essentially balanced out by what occurs between pulse
and breath. If we then come to know by what outer means one or the
other can be enhanced, it will be possible to support the natural
healing proceses that are always present, but I would say, not always
able to arise.

What outer means we use is
not such a simple matter, for a totally foreign process cannot be
introduced into the human organism. When some kind of foreign process
is introduced, it is at once transformed into its opposite within the
organism. If you eat something, the food contains certain chemical
forces. In absorbing them, the organism transforms them at once into
their opposite. This is necessary. If, for example, the food
maintained its external character too long after being absorbed, then
it would begin to break down as it does in outer nature and would
thus bring destructive and death-bringing breakdown processes into
the human being.

You can pursue the details
of the processes that I have developed for you here from the entire
human being. Let us assume, for example, that you stick yourself with
a foreign object like a splinter. Your body can react in two ways.
Suppose you cannot extract the foreign object so that it remains
inside you. Then two things can happen. The constructive force active
in the flowing blood surrounds the foreign object. It gathers around
the object, but in doing so it moves away from its own customary
position. This immediately leads to a preponderance of the nerve
activity there. Then an exudate-like formation begins to encapsulate
the foreign object. When this happens, the following takes place in
that part of the body: whereas usually, when there is not a foreign
object in that spot, the etheric body penetrates the physical body in
a certain way, in this situation the etheric body is unable to
penetrate the foreign object; instead, within this area a bubble will
form that is filled out only with the etheric. We have within us a
small portion of the body that contains a foreign object and where a
small portion of the etheric body is not organized by the physical.
In this case it is important to strengthen the astral body in that
spot to such an extent that it can be effective in the small portion
of the etheric body without the help of the physical body. Through
this encapsulation our body has actually made use of the destructive
forces, separating out these destructive forces in a small section of
the body and then incorporating into it the healing etheric body.
This will then have to be supported by the astral and the ego through
an appropriate treatment.

In such a case we have to
say that, in a certain sense, what lies above the physical in the
human being has to become strong enough to be active without the
physical in this small part of the human organization. This always
happens in what is called a healing of some foreign intrusion in the
human being, for example when a person gets stuck with a splinter and
it becomes encapsulated. In this part of his body man's whole
organization is moved a little bit upward. It can also happen that
something foreign is formed purely out of the organism. This must be
regarded in the same way.

A completely different
process could take place, however, if we have been stuck by a
splinter. It could be that the nerve activity surrounding the
splinter gets stronger and predominates over the blood activity. Then
the nerve activity, in which the ego is active (or possibly the ego
strengthened by the astral body), stimulates the blood activity. The
nerve-sense activity, which goes through the whole body, stimulates
the blood activity and does not permit an exudate to form. Instead it
stimulates a secretory process, leading to the formation of pus
(white). And because the nerves are pushing out (arrows), the pus is
also driven to the periphery by the push that goes through the nerve
tracts in their destructive activity. The splinter comes out and the
area heals over.

You can see, then, that if
the splinter is too deep in the organism, so that the pushing force
of the breakdown system, the nerve-sense system, is insufficient to
bring it to the outside, then the constructive activity in the blood
vessels will be stronger and lead to encapsulation. If the splinter
is closer to the surface, then the nerve-pushing force, the
destructive force, will be stronger. It will excite or stimulate what
wants to become an exudate so that it will make use of the breakdown
channels that are always present anyway, leading to the outside, and
the whole area will suppurate. Therefore we can actually say that we
carry in us, in incipient form, in the moment of coming into being,
the tendency for our organism to harden toward the inside in a
centripetal direction and to dissolve again toward the outside in a
centrifugal direction. In the normal processes of the human body,
however, the tumor-forming force that is directed inward and the
suppurative-inflammatory force that is directed toward the periphery
are in equilibrium. Generally our inflammatory process is strong
enough to overcome the tumefying force tending toward breakdown. Only
when one process is stronger than the other will a real tumefaction
or a real inflammation develop.

You must not be under the
impression, of course, that everything is as easy to comprehend in
reality as it seems when matters have to be simplified in a schematic
presentation. In reality the processes interpenetrate one another. In
fact, you can observe that when the inflammatory forces are strong in
the human being there will be febrile phenomena. These are
essentially the result of excessively strong constructive processes
located in the blood. With the force of selfhood (Eigenkraft)
that frequently develops in a person with a fever, it could be
possible to provide quite a bit of strength to a second person, if
the means were available for diverting the forces from one to the
other in the right way.

On the other hand, where
the breakdown forces are working strongly, cooling phenomena occur.
The presence of these phenomena is not as easy to substantiate as the
febrile phenomena, but these two types of phenomena alternate so that
in reality we are always dealing with interpenetrating activities
that simply have to be distinguished if we wish to comprehend what is
going on.

A question often arises
concerning poisons that occur in nature, for example the poison in
belladonna, the deadly nightshade: how are actual poisons different
from ordinary substances that we find in our environment and use for
food? When we eat food, something is introduced into the organism
that is formed in outer nature similarly to the way in which our
invisible man is formed. We take into us something that proceeds from
a spiritual activity, enters an astral activity, then an etheric
activity, and finally a physical activity. In nature such an activity
is directed from above downward; it acts upon the earth from the
periphery, as it were. This activity is related to our inner ego
activity, which is a purely spiritual activity. If what I have
depicted schematically flows down, but transforms itself via the
astral, then further via the etheric, then going down into the
physical, then the plant as a rule takes up such an activity. The
plant grows toward this activity from below upward and takes up this
etheric activity, which, however, already rightly contains from above
the astral and ego activity, i.e., the soul and spiritual
activity.

It is also possible for
something else to take place, as it does with a poison. Poisonous
substances have the peculiarity that they do not make use of the
etheric as do the normal green substances in the plant; instead they
turn directly to the astral, so that the astral enters into this
substance. With belladonna, the fruit becomes especially greedy and
is not satisfied by taking up just the etheric; instead the fruit
takes up the astral directly, before this astral has taken up the
life-forces through the etheric in streaming downward. You could say
that in such cases the astral is continually dripping from the
world-periphery directly down to the earth instead of entering the
etheric. And such drops of the astral being, which have not gone
through the ether atmosphere of the earth in the right way, can, for
example, be found in the poison of the deadly nightshade. We also
have this cosmic astral element dripping down into the plant in the
poison of the Jimsonweed fruit, in hyoscyamus (henbane), etc.

What therefore lives in
this plant substance, for example in the deadly nightshade, is
related to the activity that enters the human nerves and circulation
of oxygen directly from the ego or the astral body. Thus by taking in
the poison of the deadly nightshade, we get a significant
strengthening of the breakdown processes in us, those processes that
usually enter the physical body directly from the ego. The human ego
is not generally strong enough to tolerate such a strengthening of
breakdown processes. If the opposite activity is too great, however
— the activity that proceeds from below upward in the blood
vessels — one can counter it with such breakdown processes from
nature. Atropine, the poison of the deadly nightshade, can thus be
used in small doses to counteract excessive growth processes in the
human being. The moment there is too much of this poison, however, we
cannot talk about an equilibrium anymore. Then the growth processes
are pushed back and the human being is benumbed by a spiritual
activity that he is not yet able to tolerate with his ego. He will be
able to tolerate such a spiritual activity perhaps only in future
conditions, in the Venus and Vulcan stages of evolution. This is why
the peculiar symptoms of poisoning occur. First the point of origin
of the activity effective in the blood is undermined; then the
gastric manifestations arise that appear after the ingestion of
deadly nightshade poison; then the forces working from below upward
are strongly prevented from doing so in the right way; finally
complete unconsciousness occurs with the destruction of the human
being from the side of the breakdown processes.

Thus we can trace the
effect of such a substance in the human organism if we know the
spiritual content of a substance we have absorbed. This can best be
studied in plants. Knowledge of the human organism must be joined
with a proper knowledge of outer nature. We must come to know what
lives in individual plants. Then we will also know how the different
plants affect the human being, in dietary prescriptions for
example.

Then we will really be
able to achieve something if the proper social conditions are brought
about at the same time so that these things can really be applied.
Today, even if we know something, we are usually unable to do
anything, because our social conditions are in no way adapted to the
knowledge of nature. The knowledge of nature is abstracted, is driven
into the abstract so that we cannot grasp the human being's real
position in the whole universe. It would not yet be possible on a
large scale, for example, for us to ensure that individuals who might
need it could receive a certain plant substance in some sort of
rhythm. In order to make this possible in a comprehensive way, our
scientific medicine must take on a different character. The outer
arrangements in all social life need to be related to what can be
known about the human being's relationship to surrounding nature.

Certainly a great deal can
be done in isolated instances. We can prepare roots by boiling them
for someone in whom the breakdown processes proceeding from the head
are too strong. We can decoct certain roots that are known to contain
substances that have drawn the spiritual, the astral, and the etheric
in the right way into the physical in the process of root formation.
Through introducing substances from the process of root formation
into the human organism and bringing them to activity in the
organism, a person receives something that goes up to the finest
ramifications of the blood vessels at the outermost periphery, going
into the head. By doing this we can call forth something to
counteract the excessively strong breakdown processes of the nervous
system. But one needs to have an exact conception of the changes that
plant substances from the root undergo when taken in through the
mouth and worked through in order to go to the outermost periphery of
the head organization or skin organization.

In other cases we would
have to know how substances taken from the flower act in the human
organism. These substances are already a little shaky in their
relationship to the etheric, they have already taken up the astral to
a significant extent. In a certain sense they already approach the
poisonous, though only slightly. We would have to know that when
these substances are added to baths, and thereby brought into the
organism in a completely different way, we can stimulate the
excessively weak upbuilding organization that lies in the blood
vessels. We would then counteract from outside the influence from the
breakdown activity.

It is similar if we wish
to pursue the inner effectiveness of injected substances. There we
are essentially trying to strengthen the upbuilding processes so that
a proper equilibrium with the breakdown processes is established.

This is why, particularly
when giving injections, we must always observe how the breakdown
processes react. We will not get the right effect if we cannot see
how the breakdown processes first resist and then only gradually
enter into the upbuilding process in the right way. When injecting
something, therefore, we may notice that slight visual disturbances
and buzzing in the ears arise, because at first the breakdown
processes refuse to enter into the right equilibrium with the
strengthened upbuilding processes. But when such symptoms appear they
provide a guarantee that we are indeed intervening in the
processes.

You see, anthroposophy is
really not concerned with furnishing sectarian aunt-and-uncle
gatherings with schemes they can argue about, schemes describing how
the human being consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body,
and ego. Rather it is very seriously concerned with comprehending the
human being and his relationship to the world, with bringing the
spiritual into everything material. And if anthroposophy really wants
to secure its place in the world, it must be understood that it is
able to pursue the spiritual into the material. As long as we merely
occupy ourselves with aunt-and-uncle gatherings in sectarian circles,
with squabbling over the division of the human being, we will be
engaged in conflict about all sorts of other sectarian things. The
moment we can really show how anthroposophy touches on all other
knowledge, casts light on all other earthly knowledge — just as
astrology illuminated earthly processes in earlier times — then
anthroposophy will be something that can take hold of modern
civilization. Then truly constructive progress may begin in human
civilization, even in the face of the destructive processes
originating in older times.

Such seriousness must be
combined with what could be called one's commitment to anthroposophy.
Certainly not everyone can always participate so actively that he
himself discovers, for example, how belladonna on one side and
chlorine on the other work in the human organism. For each individual
to discover this is not the point; instead what is important is for
an understanding to arise in wider circles, a common feeling for how
what is therapeutic for the human being can be gained from an
anthroposophical knowledge of the earth and the human being. In
Waldorf education, we would not expect that every person could be a
teacher, or at least teachers of children from elementary school on.
We do expect, however, that there be general understanding of how
educational principles are established out of knowledge of the human
being and the world. Anthroposophy needs to be met with
understanding. It would be wrong to believe that everyone should know
everything, but the activity of an anthroposophical community should
consist of building a general understanding, based on healthy common
sense, for what anthroposophy is striving to realize for the health
and future of humanity.

Entry in Rudolf Steiner's Notebook, February 11,
1923

The ether becomes
similar to that of the nerve-sense system: A. The ether
becomes similar to that of the metabolic system: B.

Pus = the organic
(etheric) permeated by outer, centrifugal astrality
— on the path to the outside

Congealed
exudate = the (etheric) organic permeated by inner,
centripetal astrality — on the path of disappearing
out of the physical world —

In healing, the
organism only continues a process that is already active
in the daily defense against outer processes penetrating
into the human being, which are poisoning —

The lower
system (which accomplishes this) separates the outer,
after it has permeated the same with centrifugal forces,
as they are active in the growth of plants — as
they are present in sleep. What poisons is the
centripetally active [force] — of the nerve-sense
system — which leads the outer world inward —
it leads the outer world inward after cooling it (making
it into mere form), so that through it the spiritual
penetrates inward directly.